Judging Books By Their Covers (Disappointments Edition)

gingertop

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 1:28 pm

What's a book you picked up because it had a great looking cover or great blurbs or even some great writing when you riffled through it, that turned out to be a massive disappointment?

gingertop

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 1:32 pm

"The Fig Eater" by Jody Shields.
Cover was artsy. Had a blurb from the NYT. It's set in early 1900s Vienna and it's about a forensic investigation into a murder.
What could be bad about a book that's set in a great time period, describes forensic evidence of that time, is about an unsolved murder, and describes discrimination against the Roma and their superstitions?
Read this book to find out! Seriously. It was awful.

tigerwife

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 1:43 pm

“A Song if Fire and Ice” (AKA Game of Thrones). Honestly, it’s incredibly written, and I love the genre. The characters are so well developed and the endless plot lines are addictive. But it was so dirty and violent that I had to quit in middle of the first book (after several hundred pages). Oh well.

ETA it wasn’t the cover necessarily that drew me to read it but the awards and it being a NYT bestseller.

amother

Pearl

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 2:12 pm

Go Set a Watchman.

I should have known. I generally think that if an author didn't publish something in his or her lifetime, unless it was already scheduled for publication, there is a reason for that. There's a new Dr Seuss coming out that I don't want to touch. But I love To Kill a Mockingbird so much that I preordered Go Set a Watchman. Three pages in, I decided I don't want to know this version of these characters. To Kill a Mockingbird is in its essence a snapshot in time, and I want to leave it there.

LiLIsraeli

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 4:43 pm

Seven Locks by Christine Wade.

It was basically Rip van Winkle told from the perspective of his wife, who was not a likable character. I expected it to be more mythical, I guess, from the blurb on the back cover. It took way too long to get to the point. I enjoyed some of the descriptive writing, but the plot left a lot to be desired and I had to push myself to finish it.

amother

Cyan

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 5:12 pm

I have the opposite problem when judging a book by its cover. Most of you are disappointed when picking up a book where the cover was very encouraging and the content was nowhere what you expected to find on the pages inside. I have a different problem. There are many books I pick up and put right back down because of the horrifying cover, fires, car crashes for instance, or wheelchairs and IVs. I have heard afterwards that they were great reading but looking at the covers turned me off to the extent that I put them right back down Sad

33055

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 5:40 pm

Barbara Taylor Bradford

The cover was enticing. She had this and that award. Her prose are flat. Who talks like she writes? She has sophisticated characters giving explanations of ordinary things like they are speaking to 4 year olds.

I kept reading because one if the protagonists was almost killed in the beginning of the book. His friend died. I wanted to find out which one the bad guys were after. She never tied up that loose end. I kind of liked that. That's life. You don't always get closure. But her writing is tedious.

amother

Mint

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 5:41 pm

An a Anonymous Girl

I thought it was a fascinating premise. A research study on ethics, and a story where those are tested.

It turned out to be a formulaic psychological thriller that required unsustainable suspension of disbelief.

studying_torah

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 8:11 pm

Becoming by Michele Obama.
I read a few snippets in various magazines and online. Those snipets must have been the best part.
The book was so incredibly boring that I gave up before she got to the White House.
It shouldn't be boring, because her story is fascinating, but it was written terribly.
She also really paints herself as quite an unpleasant child and is super repetitive.

I was disappointed.

SuperWify

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 9:31 pm

gingertop wrote:

Don’t read the book. The fig thing was never explained or resolved and leaves quite perplexed.

gingertop

Mon, Mar 11 2019, 10:26 pm

SuperWify wrote:

Don’t read the book. The fig thing was never explained or resolved and leaves quite perplexed.

I know. It was the weirdest experience to finish this book. Every lead lead to nowhere. The investigation was tampered a million times and the investigator and his wife's "relationship" drove me mad. No motives were clear. At the end, the fig tree, the syphilis, the burn, the pictures, the evidence in the gypsy's room, and every other piece of evidence in the book were all red herrings.
The book itself was pretty stupid but I finished it because I finish every book I start. But the ending? LOL. I was dazed. Like, how did that happen. What did I just read? Did I miss something or was this book worse than any book I could even imagine?